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I finished my short tour in January and it still hasn't appeared. Today I went into MPF with my voucher and he updated my ribbon, but said IPR had to update my short tour return date and counter.

Your current STRD should be a shifting date that is x number of days after your entry to active duty date (I forget the acronym). For every day that you're TDY from CONUS to OCONUS, that date should shift to the right. Deployments, trips, whatever... if you were TDY CONUS to OCONUS it changes the date. So, say you've been OCONUS TDY a total of 365 days... it would read whatever date exactly a year after your entry to AD... basically the start of your AF clock. Next to your STRD you'll see a (*) type thing. The parenthesis will get a "1" or "2" or whatever for every short tour you do. I believe this will be whether or not you do the 300 days in 18 months or the full year short tour thing. The way the system is "supposed" to work, every time you file a travel voucher your vMPF updates with your TDY duty history, and your OCONUS days TDY get updated as well. Via magic, this somehow eventually makes it on your SURF. In reality, the system doesn't work and MPF doesn't do their jobs, so you have to force them to update it using proof of travel vouchers, etc. You're right in that prior-E folks get hosed under this system. Yep, the difference in STRDs, even not having a number in the parenthesis, might be the discriminator between you or someone else getting a 365 to a shithole. Yep, the odds have never been higher that you'll get a 365 to a shithole if you decide to make the AF a career these days, especially if you sign the bonus. FAIPs and OCONUS PCS'd folks are especially nervous... it's only CONUS to OCONUS TDYs that change the STRD. Those exercises in Thailand or wherever for Yokota folks don't count as far as I know. Maybe that's changed.

From what I saw today, but is not "official" yet: Normal short tours (i.e. Korea, unaccompanied Turkey, ITDYs, etc) still get credit for a short tour (see 36-2110, Table 3.3). Also, if you are already boots on the ground as of the new policy hitting the streets, you can still get short tour credit if you hit 181+. This of course is still word of mouth until the PSDM gets released and it could get changed before being sent out. If anyone gets their hands on the actual implementation message, which I am told is soon to follow, post it here.

If you're serving a 200 day TDY in the AOR, can your commander eliminate the short tour credit by sending you TDY outside of the AOR for a week? This would make the 181+ days non-consecutive. Notes I see are this: "2. AIRMEN REQUIRED TO DEPART THE TDY LOCATION FOR SHORT PERIODS DUE TO MISSION REQUIREMENTS SUCH AS AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE, WILL CONTINUE TO ACCUMULATE TDY CREDIT TOWARD THE 181 CONSECUTIVE DAY MINIMUM. HOWEVER, PERIODS SERVED OUT OF THE DESIGNATED LOCATION WILL NOT COUNT TOWARD THE 181 DAY REQUIREMENT. THE ACCUMULATION WILL RESUME UPON THE MEMBERS RETURN TO THE TDY LOCATION." - From AWARD OF PCS SHORT TOUR CREDIT FOR TDY (SUPERSEDES AL 8106 171955Z JUN 03 MESSAGE) How do you know if MPF will consider said TDY a "Mission requirement"?

No bonus. I'm not even eligible for it. I'm C-17 background currently in the T-6. I got selected because I'm prior-e and none of the short tour data reset when I commissioned. Also I'm s-coded which me more vulnerable. Guess we will see. I was told by my boss that it's mine unless someone decides to volunteer for it. Since they try to notification 120 days prior to the first training event for the deployment I expect it soon since the c208 training is in the spring. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

From the AFPC website, Short Tour Criteria: A. TDY Overseas(OS) starting on or after 11 Sep 2001 B. TDY a minimum of 181 consecutive days C. TDY location is designated by DOD as a hostile fire or imminent danger pay area as outlined in the DOD Financial Management Regulation Volume 7a, Chapter 10, Figure 10-1, designated hostile fire or imminent danger pay area. Sounds like you should be eligible. For any further clarification there are contact numbers at the AFPC link above. EDIT: Are you asking whether you're eligible for short tour credit, or eligible for the ribbon? If you are eligible for a short tour (which it sounds like you are), then you should automatically be eligible for the short tour ribbon. Again, the AFPC dudes should know this. [ 29. January 2005, 15:52: Message edited by: Toro ]

This thread always blows up when Chang pops in, tosses his grenade, and sits back to watch. I'm not as bitter as others on this thread, but the question of "would I have joined" if I knew then what I know now is a difficult. Unfortunately you just cannot predict how an Air Force career is going to go from the gate. You're signing up for an unpredictable career and sometimes it's going to go off the rails through no fault of your own. With the ADSC at ten years I think it's reasonable to sign up as a pilot. No other career makes sense to me. It takes 8-10 years of Air Force flying to make airline mins and then you're primed for an airline career. No chance would I sign up for an ADSC of more than ten years. I signed the 5 year bonus (I became 20 YAS bonus-eligible the next year so I signed that too) for two reasons: 1) I had just finished a non-vol short tour and felt reasonably confident I wouldn't have to do another and 2) I had just gotten a great assignment following the 365 and life would be stable for 4 years. Also, as a IDE candidate I was confident I was not going to school so I saw that as a plus. Being an Air Force pilot is cool, but the truth is that it comes with a lot of non-pilot duties for some reason. Some of that stuff can be blown off but some can't without issues. Sign up knowing that you won't be a full time pilot in the Air Force. It is still a reasonable and somewhat inexpensive pathway to the airlines. You'll have less debt but it will cost you in other ways.

33% correct. Your 365 vulnerability relies on 3 things: Short Tour Return Date, # of Short Tours, and Overseas Return Date -- some 365's also carry a rank requirement, but that's another story (+/- 1 rank to support). In addition, you have to have a minimum of 45 days TOS (IIRC) to be deployable, and also, if you have done an AEF deployment, you are "safe" 6 months after your return. In addition, you have to have enough retainability (ADSC) to complete your deployment and return with 30 days left. -- All of this information can be found on AEF Online thru the portal.

It's now policy (attached). The 180 day exception has been rescinded, which (I believe) returns it to the AFI 36-2110, Table 3.4. excerpt Champ Kind mentioned previously: TDY 300 days or more in a consecutive 18 month period OR TDY 548 days in a consecutive 3 year period = Short Tour Credit. CSAF short tour letter.pdf

My two cents... I did a 179er to Iraq and made sure to stay in theater a few extra days to get my Short Tour credit (185). It worked, I just brought my paid travel voucher to my MPF office and bam. I didn't say crap about it to my leadership and it is on my vMPF page with 7 months served in Iraq. The ribbon updated instantly (not that I care but I was amazed at how easy the process was). Also, I didn't have any issues with staying in theater longer, I worked for the Navy so what we call a Short Tour they call that just part of the job. The comment above about dudes volunteering for the 'Deid to avoid the actual AOR is shameful, we have too many "toy soldiers" as is...what a joke!

Yeah, got a short-notice email last week asking for vols to do a 179-day 'er in DC to help stand up the new command. Best of all...short tour credit....in DC. I wonder if you'd get Hostile Fire Pay/IDP for being TDY to DC?? Still a decent deal if you are on the bubble for a short tour.

F-16 drivers and Huey guys are particularly vulnerable because of the requirements of several of the 365 taskings. AFPC takes the requirements for the tasking, and then filters the database of all officers to eliminate those that don't meet the basic requirements: rank, AFSC, etc. Then they filter out those with a DEROS or DOS, or who won't have 12 months TOS, or any special flags in their record. Then they sort by number of short tours, STRD, and ODSD in that order. So when they need an F-16 Capt or Maj to go 365 to fly with the Paki's, the guy with 0 short tours in Korea floats right to the top. But there's not a lot of 365's that require, say, a C-5 guy. So those guys get hit with the "any rated" ones. But then there's lots of people qualified to fill those, so you get hidden deep under the pile of old Maj's and Lt Col's regardless of their MWS that haven't ever gone remote or gotten enough TDY days to get a short tour. If you aren't sure how vulnerable you are, check out the iTDY site on aefonline and look over the taskings that are out there.

I find this extremely suspect. PERSCO has somewhere between zero and nothing to do with awarding short tour credit. The only way I can see this even remotely possible is if for Big Blue's accounting purposes they view it on their books as separate deployments, neither of which add up to a short tour. Even if that's the case, there is nothing on your paid travel voucher that shows MPF what ULN you are filling. Hell, you can even come back CONUS (emergency leave, TDYs, etc) then go back to the AOR and resume your countdown and still get the credit. I used to hear the rumors that the USAF tracks this closely and will shepherd you on a plane to make sure you're gone at 179. Maybe for some units as a whole, but for an individual billet, it's total utter fiction.

Have we gotten to the point where guys with a short tour are getting tagged for 365s or is 1 short still enough to keep you off the list? I know prior Es are vulnerable for the 365s because of their ancient STRDs (relative to their commissioning year group peers). What's the latest trend? Who tops the list?

On a 365 tour, as soon as you go over the 179 day mark, it will count as a short tour. Same as Korea. Both a 365 and a remote to Korea entitles a person to DLA, so that's a push. A 365 will get you the BAH from your home station, but in Korea we get OHA, plus a utilities stipend on top of your monthly rent amount (The OHA covers the rent to the penny, but the utilites is more than my monthyl electric and gas bill, so I pocket the extra). A 365 is going to be state and federal tax free, plus combat/hazardous duty pay, but in Korea, I'm getting full COLA. Both have different forms of "additional" cash. I would bet a 365 would still net you more money than a generic remote tour, but not by an exponential amount. Most importantly for me, I can't but a price on being able to check the "remote" square while having my wife and kiddo with me, while traveling to places like Japan, China, and Thailand. Cap-10

Are you sure this is true? I returned from a long tour in 2009 but my short tour return date stayed 2003.

Seriously though, talk to your assignments officer. One thing I see during the pilot assignment process is cool billets that end up being hard to fill. For instance NATO has short tours in Italy. Since most guys don't volunteer for a short tour, these billets end up getting filled by non-vols. And really, it's simply cause folks don't know about them. Talk to your AFPC rep and see what's out there.

Received same Robo-mail. My favorite highlights-- "We are aggressively seeking volunteers in the ranks of Major or Lieutenant Colonel..." Not just seeking, or seeking intently, but seeking AGGRESSIVELY And "...provide a tremendous opportunity to gain valuable wartime experience in continued service to our nation. In addition, the Air Force provides several incentives, including short-tour credit, storage of household goods, possible movement of family while deployed, non-taxable federal income and additional pay. Holy shit, if I do a 365 TDY I get short tour credit?!? I don't have to take my household goods with me in my mobags? My family can "move?" Tax free? Shit I was thinking I'd go to OIF/OEF for a year, have to sell all my shit, store my family in a closet and have to pay taxes. Where do I sign?

The difference is in quality of life and pay. At my first squadron, folks would volunteer for a short tour or pred to get assignment of choice following. Also the bonus was much better. I know a few that received 3 different bonuses. Looks like this will be the first yea in how long there's no pilot bonus? I can read between those lines. Things will change for the better, but it will be years not months.

For the rest of us out there, what is your Short Tour Return Date? That way we can estimate how vulnerable the rest of us are.

Why does 548 in a 3 year period count for a short tour and 365 in a 3 year period count for a long tour? That doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to me. Can anyone explain the reasoning?

Long time reader, first time poster. I'm a non-flyer and will be facing the force shaping board in July. Does anyone with experience with these types of things (firing mass amounts of young captains/Lts....smh) have any idea what factors the board will weigh most heavily when they decide whom to cut? I've done all the qeep (masters/SOS correspondence) and stratted well at the squadron, but there are only three of us in the group and the other two strat higher than me (lots of group/wing-level awards). Curious if I should see the writing on the wall and turn down this short tour assignment that just dropped in my inbox....

Have you tried asking your supervisor/senior O-6 or any FGOs in your office that you can trust? You have some legit concerns about your future and your supervisor/commander *NEED* to give you that career feedback and address your concerns. They probably understand your specific situation better than anyone else on this board, not to mention it's their job. The best advice I was given was that it's all about luck and timing. Getting forced shaped from the AF does not say anything about your ability as an officer/leader/worker. Don't think you've done something wrong or you are not good enough if you got selected to be force shaped. It's all about luck and timing. If you want to make it a career then just roll with it and see what happens. If you are ready to get out then just decline the short tour. Regardless of the situation always have a back up plan. I hope this helps.

Assuming two things: 1 - We're VSP eligible because we're RIF eligible. 2- The AF holds to "if you're denied a Voluntary Program, you're no longer RIF eligible". If those turn out to be true, you're still on the hook for the 365 when your VSP gets denied, unless you apply for Palace Chase and that's denied too. With the sh*t show that is A1, and with a 365 waiting to drop, I'd plan for the worst with respect to VSP and get a strong backup plan. If you don't mind me asking, what's your Short Tour Return Date? AFPC is moving down the 365 list faster than 1:1, and I'm interested to see how far they've gone since I got notified.

All of this... 365's are assigned based on requirements of the J-O-B and all who meet the basic criteria are then racked and stacked accordingly. They only look at those that aren't eliminated by dwell time, non-deployable due to just arriving on station, etc. You have to stop believing all the BS you hear about a guy getting screwed because he refused to PCS, submitted for VSP, etc. I saw too many guys that were nearing the end of their UPT commitments getting tagged for a 365. If you looked further, they were getting tagged in order of STRD (none of them had OSRD or a previous short tour). There is much less behind the scenes trickery than many people give Big Blue credit for. There is an entire office that does nothing but the 365 assignments...they don't play favorites...ask your commanders who have talked to them.